


Carnevale

by Eldritch



Category: Elixir, Petshop of Horrors
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-13
Updated: 2008-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 15:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldritch/pseuds/Eldritch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leon does Venice, and finds himself confused as usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carnevale

**Author's Note:**

> You don't have to know Elixir for this fic -- I'm only a few volumes in, myself. Though if you do, my explanation for Lorenzo's presence is simply: "He's canonically looking for the Stone. You do the math." I apologize for my (lack of) knowledge of Italian.

  
Carnival was a whirl of laughing, glittering figures that looked uncomfortably inhuman in their painted masks. Hell, if it weren't for the black-ringed eyes peeking out from behind the papier-mâché, they could've passed as living statues. Leon still wasn't convinced they weren't.

For the billionth time since he'd arrived in Venice, he was seriously regretting the fact that the only Italian he knew came from too many mafia movies as a teenager and the pizza place down the street from his old apartment. Especially since it seemed like he'd left the crowds of wide-eyed tourists behind somewhere and wandered into a weird, costumers only section of town. There weren't any camera flashes to illuminate the strangely-dark streets, just hanging lanterns and the occasional torch carried glitzy guys in tights. That had to be against the fire code.

He felt a cool touch to his arm, and whirled around instinctively. Damn pickpockets, thinking the holiday crowds would be easy marks -- but the woman next to him didn't look like she was planning on robbing him. Light blue eyes stared out at him from a plain, white mask edged with silver whorls. Her simple white dress covered her from neck to ankle. Somehow, she gave the impression of a faint smile, but that could've just been the mask. Leon wasn't sure. She hadn't removed her slender, gloved hand from his arm.

"Stai da solo?" she asked. Her voice was hardly above a whisper, yet somehow he could hear her perfectly above the amused shouts and strains of music drifting over the canals.

Leon blinked. "Uh... what?"

She cocked her head to the side, causing the veil covering her hair to drift over the mask. "Stai da solo?"

"Non... capisco?" he managed, wracking his brain for one of the few Italian phrases he knew that didn't involve ordering a large pizza or telling someone to sleep with the fishes.

The woman raised her free hand to the lips of her mask to cover her giggle. It was unsettlingly charming. "Balliamo?"

Before Leon could further embarrass himself by resorting to something like "no hablo Italian," he was startled by another voice from behind him, this one male. He turned his head and squinted to get a better look at the guy in the dim light. To his relief, the newcomer looked entirely normal. Jeans, button-down shirt, fancy leather jacket. Not a mask or a sequin in sight. He repeated whatever he'd said in Italian again, a little more firmly this time, and suddenly Leon was wondering if the girl hanging off him was this guy's girlfriend, and wouldn't that be awkward. He looked back over at the girl to try and see if she recognized the guy, but she was gone. Vanished. He hadn't even felt her leave.

"Sorry about that," the guy said in perfect English. He flashed Leon a smile. You'll have to trust me when I tell you that you didn't really want to dance with her anyway."

Leon stared at him. "Is that what she wanted?"

The guy's expression darkened slightly. "It's what she was asking for," he said, which didn't really answer anything. But before Leon could call him on it, he started talking again. "You're very lost." It was a statement, not a question.

"Lemme guess, you can tell 'cause I'm not wearing one of those damn weirdo costumes?" Leon eyed him. "Not like you are, either."

For some reason, the guy seemed to find that funny. "In a way, this is my costume," he said slowly. "If I escort you back to Piazza San Marco, do you think you can find your way to wherever you're going from there?"

He seemed like he was in a hurry to get Leon out of wherever he'd wandered into, which made him wonder if he'd found himself in the middle of something illegal. It might explain the girl, anyway. But even though that made Leon's cop senses sit up and take notice, it wasn't like he had any jurisdiction here. And he really was lost. "Sure," he said.

\---

It turned out the guy's name was Lorenzo, and he was a university student from Bologna skipping classes to come to Carnival. Somehow, he managed to convince Leon to stop by a small, rowdy bar on their way back and have a couple of drinks with him. Leon wasn't quite sure how he'd managed that, but hey, he had a beer in his hand, and he couldn't complain about that. When he asked Lorenzo if he regularly rescued lost tourists, the man grinned.

"It's dangerous out here alone at night," he said.

Leon raised an eyebrow. "Y'know, I'm a cop at home."

Lorenzo shook his head and took a sip of whatever he was drinking. It looked like wine. Probably was. "That wasn't what I meant."

"I'm not drunk-- damn, okay, maybe I am a little now, but I wasn't before. So I don't think I was gonna be falling into any fucking canals," Leon pointed out, then immediately regretted his word choice.

"Actually," Lorenzo said, deadpan, "I was talking about the ghosts."

Half a year ago, Leon would've laughed in his face. Part of him still wanted to. But the rest of him, the part that'd come back from a flying ship full of impossible animals, thought back to the woman's cool touch and how she'd seemed to have evaporated into thin air. "Oh," he said. "So, uh... when you said she didn't just want to dance with me..."

Lorenzo gestured vaguely with his wine glass. Even though they were inside, he hadn't taken off his leather gloves. "They would have found you tomorrow speared on one of the gondolier's oars with your face ripped off."

That seemed like a good reason to down the rest of his beer, so Leon did. "Shit," he said.

"It's how she died." Lorenzo grimaced. "It seems she's bitter her murder was never solved."

"I would be too, but does she have to kill people?"

At that, Lorenzo shrugged. "I keep meaning to ask her that, but she just disappears before I can. As you saw."

Leon frowned. "Thought you said you were a chemistry student. The hell're you doing playing Ghostbusters?"

"It's a hobby, I suppose."

"Fucking weird hobby."

Lorenzo laughed and drummed his fingers on the bar. "Is it?" he asked. He regarded Leon with half-lidded eyes and a lazy smile, an expression that was uncomfortably familiar. "Most people would say the same about stalking someone around the globe."

Things sort of happened in a blur after that. Leon vaguely remembered dropping his beer and grabbing Lorenzo by the front of his annoyingly stylish shirt. In any case, the next thing he knew, he was slamming the guy into the bar. The bartender looked up, but either didn't care or was so used to this sort of thing he didn't think it was worth it.

"What do you know about him?!" Leon demanded.

Despite the fact that his back had hit the corner of the bar hard enough to make him wince, Lorenzo gave a low chuckle. "I know that you just missed him."

"Yeah, I'd gathered," Leon ground out. He didn't let go.

"Also, that he was about as emotional as I'd ever seen him. Something about idiotic, violent Americans." Lorenzo's lips quirked into an amused smile. "I'm beginning to understand what he was talking about."

It seemed like everyone Leon ran into these days had a questionable sense of humor. He growled. "And, what? You gonna tell me I should lay off and leave him alone?"

Lorenzo looked up at Leon with eyes that had lost their teasing edge. They suddenly looked very old and very tired. "If I wanted that, I would have let the ghost get you. No," he said softly, "actually, I'm on your side. He could use someone like you."

"I-- what?" All Leon could do was stare dumbly down at him. He'd gotten used to people telling him to give up, to go home, that he was crazy-- the only two who supported him were Chris and Jill. Chris, because he understood what was going on in a way that even Leon was pretty sure he didn't, and Jill because she was the best partner a guy could ever ask for. And now there was some weird Italian dude telling him that he belonged in that group, too.

When Lorenzo smiled this time, it was a softer expression. "Balance," he said, as though that explained everything. "That's the basic principle of alchemy." He raised a hand to Leon's forehead, and before Leon could wrap his mind around the fact that might not be a good thing, everything went black.

\---

Leon woke up to find himself on the crappy bed in his equally crappy hotel room with a hangover he couldn't explain. Just rolling over seemed like a momentous task, and he groaned pathetically as he did so. Blinking sleep-fogged eyes at the digital clock on the nightstand -- 1:00 PM, they proclaimed, like they were judging him -- he caught sight of something that hadn't been there before. An envelope. It turned out he could fumble for it without getting out of bed, which was good, so he picked it up and opened it. A one-way plane ticket fell out onto the scratchy comforter.

Despite himself, Leon grinned.


End file.
